THE COLLEGE

Dartmouth's 184th academic year began officially on the morning of September 24. As a prelude to the start of classes, the freshmen flooded in a week earlier, adding a new touch to the local scene with the green and white crew hats that have replaced the old beanies. Another "full college" is in prospect for 1952-53, and the second largest entering class in Dartmouth's history provides a good part of this numerical strength.

In picking this fall's entering class, the Admissions Office once again came through with a pin-point job on numbers. The target for the Class of 1956 was 735 men and at this writing it looks as if 740 will actually matriculate. In view of the allowance that has to be made for an unknown attrition between April and September, coming that close to the desired total represents super-precision to the layman. Some statistical formula is behind it all, but this never lessens the wonder of those who believe that something like the dowsing rod must also be involved.

The freshmen who arrived September 18 for a week of orientation and testing were assembled from 36 states and nine foreign countries. As a vanguard, 175 of the '56ers reached town several days earlier to go on the DOC's Freshman Trip.

The College's total enrollment-freshmen, upperclassmen and graduate students -is expected to be somewhat smaller than last fall's figure of 2800. The Ad Building's guess is approximately 2700, of whom a little over 2500 will be undergraduates. Approximately 1350 of these undergrad uates will be enrolled in the ROTC programs of the Army, Navy and Air Force, an increase of about 400 over the service enrollment last year.